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BUSINESS AND MEDICINE Volume 351:523-526 August 5, 2004 Number 6 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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In 1941, Skinner and Keefer vividly chronicled an astonishing 82 percent mortality among 122 consecutive patients who had been treated for Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia in the preantibiotic era.¹ Of the 41 patients older than 50 years of age, only 1 (2 percent) survived. Imagine the elation a few years later over the availability of penicillin, the prototype of a new therapeutic class of drugs (see page 524). In the next few decades, well-intentioned academic leaders predicted the demise of bacterial infections.

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Such irrational exuberance over the sustained benefits of antibiotics should have been tempered by . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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From the Department of Internal Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond.

Related Letters:

The Antibiotic Pipeline
Kunin C. M., Montgomery A. B.
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N Engl J Med 2004; 351:2019-2020, Nov 4, 2004. Correspondence

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